After Getting Shamed for 5000 Percent Hike, ‘Most Hated Man

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After Getting Shamed for 5000 Percent Hike, ‘Most Hated Man in America’ Will Lower Drug Price
by Judd Legum
September 23, 2015

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Since Martin Shkreli has been under criticism for his outrageous price increase of a drug that treats severe infections in AIDS patients and infants, he confirmed a lower price was to come. But will it help his reputation?

Martin Shkreli, the controversial pharmaceutical CEO and former hedge fund manager, announced that he would reduce the price of the drug Daraprim to “a point that is more affordable.” Shkreli has been the subject of unrelenting criticism since he implemented a 5000% increase in the price of the drug — from $13.50 per pill to $750 — which is used to treat severe infections in AIDS patients and infants.

Shkreli, who talked to ABC News, declined to name the new price for the medicine, which has been on the market for 60 years. ABC described Shkreli as “the most hated man in America.”



While working at a company he founded called Retrophin, Shkreli had implemented a similar price hike on a kidney medicine. The Huffington Post reported that Shkeli “is part of a criminal investigation” involving Retrophin. He owes the company more than a half-million dollars.
He is also named in a civil suit alleging he harassed a co-worker and his family, according to court documents uncovered by Gawker.

Shkreli also removed his Twitter account, which he has been using to mock his critics, from public view.

Another company, Rodelis Therapeutics, was forced to roll back a 20-fold increase on the price of a tuberculosis drug after public outcry.

[admin]

Lawsuit: Scumbag Pill Price Gouger Stalked and Harassed Ex-Coworker's Entire Family
by Sam Biddle
9/22/15



Even before he earned national infamy for jacking up the price of life-saving cancer and HIV meds and then being a general shit about it on Twitter, Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli was working hard on a toxic reputation. Court documents show Shkreli’s disturbing history of tormenting the wife and daughters of a business foe.

Timothy Pierotti was a colleague of Shkreli at his pervious biotech venture, Retrophin, before an alleged business deal gone awry created bad blood. From there, legal documents allege, Shkreli proceeded to harass and threaten Pierotti’s family via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and text message. Pierotti says Shkreli—a one time Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree—even broke into various online accounts owned by his family:

2. In particular, I submit this affidavit to provide first-hand evidence of the repetitious harassment that Shkreli has inflicted on not only me, but on my wife, teenage children, elderly father, as well as other family members. Shkreli has harassed me and my family for nearly a year, and his harassment intensified on and around this past Christmas. Indeed, Shkreli sent multiple unwelcome texts and social media messages to my family and me on Christmas Day.

3. In addition, I submit this affidavit to provide first-hand esvidence of the breaches of five of my personal accounts, including my AOL email, Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts.

In January of 2013, Pierotti’s wife received this letter, ostensibly from Shkreli, in which he says “I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this”:

Needless to say, when I initiate my litigation, I will sue both you and your husband for fraud. I am going to inform the bank who holds your mortgage and local police department that you have committed fraud. I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this. Your husband's arrogance is unfuriating and making an enemy out of me is a huge mistake. I am tempted to withdraw my offer for $40,000 to make this all go away, but I implore you to reason with your husband. $40,000 is enough for him to get off of his ass and find a real job, something I know he truly has no interest in doing. However, I will leave the door open as I know you have no interest in you and your husband being sued for fraud and your bank terminating your mortgage, something I assure you I will stop at nothing to accomplish.
Thank You,
Martin Shkreli
1-212-983-1310

The campaign of harassment continued through the rest of 2013, including a litany of Facebook messages and friend requests, including one sent to Pierotti’s elderly father. A sampling can be viewed below:

Martin Shkreli
Hi Kristen. I hope you're well. Today, we are filing a summons demanding $3 million in damages and penalties from you and your family, specifically your husband. We are alleging fraud, fraudulent inducement and other charges which we can easily prove with written records and testimony from Tim's colleagues (6 people). I regret your husband's dishonesty and willingness to steal large amounts of money from me and my firm. We will get it back and then some. I'm going to be sending copies of the summons with notice to everyone you and your husband know, and probably subpoena you and your contacts to ensure appropriate discovery of facts. You're one of 35 people who will receive notice today.
REDACTED
Martin Shkreli
How do you sleep at night? Your husband stole millions from me.

Pierotti’s son, 16 at the time, received these IMs:

Martin Shkreli
hey. I'm a friend of your father.
December 20, 2013.
REDACTED Plerotti
ok so why did you friend me?
December 21, 2013
Martin Shkreli
im surprised you don't know who I am. I was your dad's boss
December 21, 2013
REDACTED Pierotti
ok so why did you friend me?
December 24, 2013
Martin Shkreli
because I want you to know about your dad
he betrayed me. he stole $3 million from me.
December 24, 2013
REDACTED Pierotti
doubt it
Martin Shkreli
I sued him, ask him about it
he took $3 m that didn't belong to him

Shkreli was even creative enough to use LinkedIn as a channel for harassment:

Linkedin
Scumbag.
-Martin Shkreli

The creepiest moment from a creep who seems to know no bounds is this text message to Pierotti’s wife—one of many such “sweetie” texts, according to a police report:

Dec 26, 2013 2:54 PM
Hey sweetheart

That same police report includes accusations that Shkreli had broken into Pierotti’s Gmail account, using that access to reset his Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. Shkreli allegedly went so far as to publish unflattering posts about Pierotti from Pierotti’s own Facebook account, prompting him to discover that many of his passwords had been changed without his permission:

Facebook: REDACTED
Hi Timothy.
Twitter: Your Twitter password has been chan.. You recently changed the password associate
Fri Dec 27
account-verification-noreply: Google Email Verification
Welcome in Google Accounts. To activate you
12/26/2013
Facebook: Someone may have accessed your ac...
Secure Your Account No https://www.fac
12/26/2013
account-verification-noreply: Google Email Verification
welcome to Google Accounts. To activate you
12/25/2013
Facebook: You requested a New Facebook pass..
This message contains a rich text HTML
12/26/2013
Facebook: REDACTED commented on your
See Comment
12/26/2013
Facebook: Facebook password reset
Hi Timothy. Your Facebook password was
12/26/2013
Facebook: You requested a new Facebook pass..
This message contains a rich-text HTML
12/26/2013
AOLHelp
AOL Account Password Res..
AOL User, Our records show that the pas
12/26/2013

According to the police report, Shkreli denied even knowing Pierotti when contacted by an officer. He later settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, Bloomberg reports.

You can read the full legal complaint below:

Retrophin v. Timothy Pierotti, Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendant Timothy Pierotti's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint

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Matt
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 1:55pm
I hope for this assholes career ruination. Seriously, I hope all of this makes him so fucking toxic that he loses everything he's gained and no one will touch him for anything more important than an entry level position and that this time next year he's taking orders from a 21 year old at a Taco Bell and is having to drive a 20 year old Accord that's about to go tits up.
742
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Ian Muir
Matt
9/22/15 1:59pm
We can all hope for it, but let’s face it, he’s still going to make millions from this bullshit Daraprim thing and he will continue to be a very rich waste of oxygen for the rest of his life. All we can hope is that he gets some terrible disease and goes bankrupt due to some insane cost increase in the drugs he needs to cure it.
388
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BobbySerious
Matt
9/22/15 2:00pm
No way, this is America, greed is not only applauded, it’s a fucking virtue.
300
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Matt
Ian Muir
9/22/15 2:03pm
I would love for next week there to be a headline where some hot-shot chemist compounds a drug that is twice as effective as Daraprim and can be easily produced for like 3 cent a pill and would just make it obsolete.
320
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DarthPumpkin
Matt
9/22/15 2:03pm
He’s basically toxic at this point. I can’t imagine his investors will let him stick around, not with all this negative publicity. Other biotech firms likely won’t work with him because he’s giving them all a bad name and attracting the attention of regulators and politicians.
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ad infinitum
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 1:58pm
Nothing like spending months stalking someone’s family on social media to say, “I have a solid, actionable legal case here.”
490
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DressagesWithWolves
ad infinitum
9/22/15 2:03pm
It’s really an excellent way to convince people you’re a reasonable person who isn’t one tiny bit insane and will TOTALLY not escalate your demands until one day they come home to find you naked in their house pissing on everything screaming “AND NOW THAT’S MINE AND NOW THAT’S MINE TOO” and they have to beat you to death with a chair.
281
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BrtStlnd
ad infinitum
9/22/15 2:04pm
The only response would be “Ok, great. Now we do as well!”
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Fizzaaaaaaaaaartz
ad infinitum
9/22/15 2:06pm
Somehow “you stole 3 million from me” turned into “I will pay you an out of court settlement.” Hmmm.
240
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Jerry-Netherland
ad infinitum
9/22/15 2:10pm
Right? If he’s so confident, why tank the case with all of this outside meddling? Leave it to the lawyers. But, then this guy (who is still just 32) was mentored by that most responsible douchebag emeritus, Jim Cramer.
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Quantum Suicide
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 2:03pm

This dude’s got Zero Chill.
The son, on the other hand? All Chill.

Martin could pick up a few tips from him. But will he? “doubt it.”
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Harbour Seal
Quantum Suicide
9/22/15 2:07pm
I want to stand that lad a pint.
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Quantum Suicide
Harbour Seal
9/22/15 2:10pm
If I were that kid, I’d make the whole exchange my comp wallpaper and just let the honeys roll in.

But he’s so chill he probably doesn’t even care how hero he is.
175
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Harbour Seal
Quantum Suicide
9/22/15 2:12pm
“Your father stole 3 million from me”

“Dude why are you so pressed”
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Quantum Suicide
Harbour Seal
9/22/15 2:13pm
ok so why did you friend me
180
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igotwords
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 2:05pm
Come on internet... don’t let me down!

There have been times when going after someone personally and exposing their private secrets is unwarranted and wrong.

This is NOT one of those times. This guy is literally profiting from the suffering of other humans directly, not offhandedly, not over the long run, not without direct intimate knowledge.

He is a horrible despicable excuse for human being, who represents what unbridled greed, and ‘free market principals’ on steroids with a mentality that makes human traffickers look sympathetic by comparison. He deserves to have his entire life looked at with a microscope so we can fully understand where he came from.

I try my best in life not to hate people, but if ever a man was worthy of hatred, criticism, and public mockery IT IS THIS MAN.
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Cam/ron
igotwords
9/22/15 2:16pm
“This guy’s fucked up, even to me!”

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VtDkDude
igotwords
9/22/15 2:17pm
Ugh. He is a horrible human being.

“Oh yeah, there is this drug that lots of people need and lots of people use. What? We aren’t overcharging and gouging sick people? Wait, can we charge more? Oh, we should only start with a 5,000% increase? I guess. Oh, I forgot, I need more gel.”

Dude your “well the other drugs cost even more, so I am not doing anything worse than they are” argument just shows off how much of a fucking douchebag you are and it makes my face burn. I really hope something horrible happens to you. Just to you. No one else around you, friends (unbelievable but you probably found some fellow assholes) or family. Just. You.
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Babe Bennett
igotwords
9/22/15 2:26pm
I don’t know if he’s really any worse than the automobile executives who wheedled bailouts out of Congress while selling cars that they knew had defects that would kill people or the petroleum company executives that pumped toxic chemicals into the ocean in order to mask the extent of the oil spill caused by their negligence or the military profiteers who got us into Afghanistan and Iraq and are now clamoring for us to invade Iran and Syria...
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opiumsmabytch
igotwords
9/22/15 2:35pm
It’s a self-serving cycle too, “peers” jack of the price to be in line, over and over, the line just keeps shifting up. That that is their focus.... is so glaring. The levels of entitlement here are astronomical.
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SaitoHawkeye
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 2:01pm
Even ol’ Patrick B. is like, get a load of THIS douchecanoe:

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Terry
SaitoHawkeye
9/22/15 2:09pm
I love Phil Collins.
35
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SaitoHawkeye
Terry
9/22/15 2:11pm
Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole.
46
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Cam/ron
SaitoHawkeye
9/22/15 2:15pm
Poor Huey Lewis and the News.
16
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SaitoHawkeye
Cam/ron
9/22/15 2:18pm
Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes.
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Greasy Thumb Guzik
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 3:09pm
This is yet one more reason why I, a life-long Democrat despise Obama.

All he has to do is put Daraprim or any other obscenely overpriced drug on compulsory license & the government can obtain it at the lowest cost from any manufacturer in the world & then distribute it. When there was the 2001 DC anthrax attacks, the government forced Bristol Myers/Bayer to drastically cut the price of Cipro [ciproflacicin], still under patent, by threating to issue a compulsory license for it.

Obama is really a Republican, a DINO!
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deliaplum
Greasy Thumb Guzik
9/22/15 3:43pm
but it wasn’t obscenely overpriced until this douchebag jacked up the price to $750. Is Obama supposed to be a psychic?
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Greasy Thumb Guzik
deliaplum
9/22/15 3:57pm
It’s been close to a month since the price was raised by this asshole. The Bush Administration forced down the price of a drug by threatening a compulsory license, so it shouldn’t be difficult for a Democratic one to do the same!
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bobbythunderskull
Greasy Thumb Guzik
9/22/15 4:06pm
What in the name of Chuck Norris’s fists are you on about? Since when does the president have control over how much a drug company charges for its wares?
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deliaplum
Greasy Thumb Guzik
9/22/15 4:35pm
they threatened to break Bayer’s patent on Cipro so Bayer backed down. they kept their patent. they agreed to sell to the govt at a drastically reduced rate (but only to the government). this was in the event of a terrorist anthrax attack since Dubs promised to “keep muricans safe”

this drug, however, is out of patent and any other drug company can make it. so, Obama cannot threaten to break a patent as there is not one. and apparently, the FDA has no control over drug prices. and neither can Obama. no patent, no threat.
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EvanrudeJohnson
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 2:09pm
This may be sort of besides the point, but this bothered me. Turd Boy stated in the second paragraph to the wife, “From Day 1, Tim was a terrible employee”.

If Marty knew this guy was a bad employee, pretty much from the onset, then it is Marty who is the moron for giving this guy 400,000 shares and a bunch of other money.
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AlphaOmegaAesop
EvanrudeJohnson
9/22/15 2:19pm
You know your company is doing great when 400,000 shares equals 1.6 million dollars.
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NoButWait
EvanrudeJohnson
9/22/15 2:23pm
Stinks, doesn’t it? If Tim was such an awful employee, he must have had some amazing connections to remain employed so long and score a $5000 check and 400k shares of the company.
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KittyPancakes3.0
EvanrudeJohnson
9/22/15 2:26pm
That’s whats so funny about guys like this, they think they’re soooo much smarter than everyone, that they can make the story up as they go along, and lie and cheat and steal, and that no one will ever be the wiser.
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Myrna Minkoff
EvanrudeJohnson
9/22/15 2:31pm
Also, I’m not a finance whiz, but if you receive shares under contract for work, I’m pretty sure you can’t just “run off” with them. Depending on how they are awarded, either you own them even if you quit the next day OR they are delayed compensation that you receive AFTER the contract terms are met.

He makes it sound like Perrotti stuffed the shares in his hobo sack and ran off like the Hamburglar with them.
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EasttoMidwest
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 3:00pm
He’s in his early thirties and he’s been chosen as a CEO of a company. That tells me that the company was not in such hot shape, which makes their acquisition of Daraprim seem a bit... unlikely, financially speaking. Sure, his strategy is clearly to acquire low-hanging fruit without competitors and then jack up the price, corporate raider style, but I’m very curious about how that deal was financed in the first place. Note, this strategy also runs completely counter to the idea that they would be conducting their own research into new drugs.
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OhMaiGolly
EasttoMidwest
9/22/15 3:39pm
Are you knowledgable with regard to business and whatnot?

Pretty much the entire day I’ve wondered if there is anything at all that can be done to undo what this guy has done. Is there? I can’t figure out how I would go about asking Google this question so it’s a shot in dark asking random commenters but so be it.

I wish I could ask this in a more eloquent way but my brain is shot at the moment. This has seriously been on my mind and angering me since last night til sleep and then as soon as I woke back up. I suppose that has something to do with having a parent who only entered remission from breast cancer a year ago. It's personal. Fuck this guy.
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EasttoMidwest
OhMaiGolly
9/22/15 4:03pm
The short is answer is maybe. I’m not an expert in generic pharma law and regulation, but it does exist and it’s entirely possible that the FDA or/and the FTC will do one of a few things: 1) Play hardball on future acquisitions, 2) Fast track (and sweeten) competitive products, 3) It’s maaaaaaaaybe possible that they have the power to demand price changes.

He would be likely to get bumped by the board for bad publicity, but the board of directors page on their website is .... empty. This is functionally a private company owned by Shkreli.

The best bet would be that he sold shares to people who are going to sue him. He didn’t pay for the acquisition on his own, so there are other interested parties. On the other hand, they may not give a shit as long as he’s taking the heat.

The next bet would be that the FDA and FTC refuse to let this organization buy any other products.
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EasttoMidwest
EasttoMidwest
9/22/15 4:05pm
Just realized this is his own company, that he founded. They have two products.
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OhMaiGolly
EasttoMidwest
9/22/15 6:52pm
Thanks for responding. That was an interesting read.
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Avery Jane Spencer
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 1:59pm
I love how Shkreli thinks this teenager would know the name of his dad’s boss is and other personal details of their work relationship. Shkreli cannot fathom that people don’t know who he is even children.

Plus this kid had a fantastic response and didn’t even know it.
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qu1j0t3
Avery Jane Spencer
9/22/15 2:24pm
Maybe he does know it. Anyway if he finds this thread, he will!
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Jeff_bott
Avery Jane Spencer
9/22/15 2:25pm
doubt it
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1llamarampage will write again
Avery Jane Spencer
9/22/15 2:49pm
Right? I’m an adult, and very interested in my dad’s work (I’m proud of him, and I like to hear more things about him that make me proud) so we talk about it all the time, and I don’t know his boss’ name.
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coolbreeze
Avery Jane Spencer
9/22/15 2:50pm

This kid deserves an award.
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miley cyrus' medical marijuana card
Sam Biddle
9/22/15 1:53pm
Hey Sam, are we not covering Azaelia Banks calling a flight attendant a faggot today?
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McGarnagle
miley cyrus' medical marijuana card
9/22/15 2:04pm
Why should any news outlet continue covering that fucking idiot? Who cares?
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igotwords
miley cyrus' medical marijuana card
9/22/15 2:12pm
celebrity says something offensive... film at 11.

CEO raises cost of life saving drug %5000+, causing desperate people to have to shell out hundreds of thousands, potentially ruining lives and bankrupting them, and you shrug?
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godspeed_aquaboy
miley cyrus' medical marijuana card
9/22/15 2:12pm
Try the tipline. Unless you are trying to annoy the fuck out of everyone else. And who the fuck is Azaelia Banks, which might be why they aren’t running the story.
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caekislove-caekingitup
miley cyrus' medical marijuana card
9/22/15 2:16pm
That’s TMZ’s moral panic of the day. This is ours.
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[admin]

Pharmaceutical Greed Villain Martin Shkreli Will Fight the Whole Internet
by Sam Biddle
9/21/15

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

"Did you hear them, did you hear these monsters talking about monsters?"
-- Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Given that Big Pharma executives are mostly visible monsters with fangs and horns, they usually avoid the spotlight. But after raising the cost of a life-saving pill by 5,000 percent, Turing CEO Martin Shkreli is loudly telling the world to fuck off.

Only a bad guy from Captain Planet could come up with a more brazenly amoral business scheme: Turing Pharmaceuticals purchased the rights to Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction that affects tens of millions in the U.S. alone. Daraprim is particularly important for AIDS and cancer patients, whose weakened immune systems are ravaged by toxoplasmosis. Shkreli has now directly, intentionally switched the drug from affordable to insanely out of reach, Healio reports:

Since its acquisition, the price of pyrimethamine has increased from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet, according to IDSA and HIVMA. In an open letter to Turing, the organizations urged the pharmaceutical company to revise its pricing strategy for the generic medication.

“Under the current pricing structure, it is estimated that the annual cost of treatment for toxoplasmosis, for the pyrimethamine component alone, will be $336,000 for patients who weigh less than 60 kg and $634,500 for patients who weigh more than 60 kg,” they wrote. “This cost is unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population in need of this medication and unsustainable for the health care system.”

Shkreli isn’t just a regular, run-of-the-mill pharmaceutical industry monster. He’s a monster who used to work (of course) in finance, a former hedge funder accused of having tried to manipulate FDA regulations on drug companies whose stocks he was shorting. He was forced out of the last drug company he started, which is now suing him for $65 million. He’s also a probable charlatan who has claimed to have invented his own pharmaceuticals, despite his lack of any medical or scientific education.

(Shkreli is able to do price-gouge a generic drug by exploiting a few FDA loopholes that give companies exclusive licensing rights to certain older drugs, and allow them to deny other companies the access to those drugs needed to prove that a generic alternative is chemically identical.)

According to USA Today, Turing claims the proceeds of the now-exorbitantly priced toxoplasmosis drug will be used to research treatments and raise awareness for toxoplasmosis:

Rothenberg defended Daraprim’s price, saying that the company will use the money it makes from sales to further research treatments for toxoplasmosis. They also plan to invest in marketing and education tools to make people more aware of the disease.

This could also be phrased as “attempting to grow the size of the potential market for this suddenly much more profitable drug.”

Rather than hide and count his blood money, Shkreli is conducting a social media blitz. He spent much of last night bickering with John Carroll, a science writer who runs a pharma news website and has been critical of Shkreli for pulling a nearly identical price-gouging stunt at his last company.

@JohnCFierce just a bad journalist who doesn't check facts or think logically.
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

@JohnCFierce I think engaging you would make your head spin. You still have to learn how to read SEC filings, after all.
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

@JohnCFierce No one is reading this. There are no "folks". You are irrelevant.
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

@JohnCFierce You are such a moron.
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

And it’s not just journalists. Shkreli’s also sparring with pretty much anyone who criticizes his obscene business practices:

@AceofSpaces2007 @given2tweet you have be blocked, genius.
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

@exophrenologist what if it wasn't priced fairly to begin with...Mind blown?!
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

Here he is accusing a guy with 25 followers of having no life:

@AdamR_93 I don't think you have the facts though. Seems you are pulling this frustration from other parts of your life maybe?
-- Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli) September 20, 2015

The man is relentless. He cannot be daunted:

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@EriyaSan whoa!

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@ColBuckwheat wtf

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@TheUnicornlord no!

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@EriyaSan sure!

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@zacharyslater great?

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@Cup_O-Fars oh thanks, cup o farts

Martin Shkreli @MartinShkreli
@EzCostello cool

He’s also taken to Reddit to directly engage with people who hate his guts (a suicide mission if there ever was one):

Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750 last month, shortly after purchasing exclusive rights to the drug. by Hetalbot
martinshkreli
we assist with copays to ensure copays stay below $20.
the procedures are really complicated and involve the incentive for generics. generics only get involved when they can knock down the price and still make a profit. this was a strangely inexpensive drug, and now it is priced more in-line with its peers
the insured will pay through insurance. the uninsured will get it for free.

“This was a strangely inexpensive drug.”

This is not the first time that Shkreli’s combined love of parasitical rent-seeking and social media engagement have landed him in hot water. At his last company, Retrophin, shareholders were furious when Shrkeli appeared to tweet hints about company acquisitions before they were officially announced.

And, well, there was also this:

More recently, three alias Twitter accounts were found to be under the control of unidentified Retrophin employees, according to people familiar with the situation. The link was found after the IP address of one of the alias Twitter accounts matched the IP address of Retrophin’s headquarters.

The most prolific of these accounts, @Thug_BioAnalyst, tweeted in “ghetto slang” expressing support for Retrophin and calling out other drug stocks, including TherapeuticsMD (TXMD), as shorts.

Thug Biotech Analyst
$RTRX damn bruh, if Cohen is buying then your boy is buyin too nahmean

Ironically, Shkreli’s insistence on trolling anyone who contacts him will probably do little but “make people more aware” of how grotesque the whole pharmaceutical industry is, and how insane our drug pricing system is compared to the drug pricing in every other wealthy nation. The attention Shkreli has attracted has already prompted Hillary Clinton to tweet her objection to the news, immediately causing a dip in the NASDAQ biotech index:



There appears to be real fear on the part of Big Pharma that the utter shamelessness of this incredibly hatable greedhead could ruin the racket for the respectable and mostly anonymous greedheads in the rest of the industry.

In case you need any more help making a decision about Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals, here is a photo of Martin Shkreli posted by Martin Shkreli:


@MartinShkreli's Tweets are protected.
Only confirmed followers have access to @MartinShkreli's Tweets and complete profile. Click the "Follow" button to send a follow request.

[admin]

Sanders Rejects Donation from Big Pharma’s Martin Shkreli—Gives it to a Health Clinic Instead
by Elizabeth Miller
October 17, 2015

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Big Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli pledged his support and donated to Bernie Sanders this week. So how did Bernie respond? By taking the money and giving it to a health clinic in Washington.

Remember Martin Shkreli? In case you don’t, Shkreli, CEO of Turking Pharmaceuticals, is the man that raised the price of a drug last month by 4,000 percent—from $13.50 to $750 per pill. The drug, Daraprim, is the only treatment of a rare parasitic infection.

It turns out Shkreli is a supporter of Bernie Sanders. If you think this is odd, you are not alone. Sanders has long been a proponent of lowering prices for prescription drugs, even proposing to let people import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, and calling for Medicare to lower drug prices. But Shkreli doesn’t like Hillary Clinton, claimining: “I don’t think she really stands for anything. At least Bernie’s passionate and really kind of provocative.”

Shkreli tweeted his support for Sanders live during this week’s Democratic National Debate and has been trying to get a meeting with the Vermont Senator for weeks. He was been repeatedly turned away though, resulting in him making a $2,700 donation in an effort to get Sanders’ attention. On Thursday, Michael Briggs, campaign spokesman for Bernie Sanders, announced that “We are not keeping the money from this poster boy for drug company greed,” but will instead make a $2,700 donation to Whitman-Walker health clinic in Washington.

Although Shrekli supports Sanders call for free public college and mental health care, he doesn’t agree with his stance on drug prices. He claims that he donated in an effort to get a meeting with Sanders in order to explain why drug companies set the prices the way that they do.

Now that Sanders has both refused a meeting and donated his money elsewhere, Shrekli is angry: “I think it’s cheap to use one person’s action as a platform without kind of talking to that person,” Shkreli said in the interview. “He’ll take my money, but he won’t engage with me for five minutes to understand this issue better.”

He isn’t worried about the laws changing any time soon though: “Right now the rule of law in the United States is that drug companies can price their products wherever they see fit, not wherever he sees fit,” Shkreli said. “If the rule changes by congressional vote, then you know, I’ll adapt to the rules.”

Shkreli also tweeted about his donation during the Democratic National Debate on Tuesday, along with the claim that soaring drug prices are what pays for research and development on drugs for the future.

So what do you think? Did Bernie make the right move? Do you agree with Shkreli that it is okay to raise the price of a drug by 4,000 percent to make up for paying for research and development?

[admin]

Greedy Pharma CEO Furious After Competitor Offers Alternative $1 AIDS Pill
by John Vibes
October 25, 2015

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Turing Pharmaceuticals’ CEO Martin Shkreli might have raised the price of Daraprim to a ridiculous amount, but the medication is not trademarked leaving the possibility to replicate the drug available. A competitor from San Diego has done just that and will be selling the medication for a much cheaper price.

Last month, Turing Pharmaceuticals sparked global outrage when CEO Martin Shkreli raised the price of a drug called Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to $750. Luckily, the medication is old enough that there are no trademark restrictions on it, so other companies are free to develop an identical medication at a lower price.

It took roughly one month for a competitor to come on the scene and offer a lower price.

This week, the San Diego based Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that it would be offering an alternative for roughly $1 per pill, or $99 for a 100-pill supply.

Mark L. Baum, CEO of Imprimis, said in a statement that, “It is indisputable that generic drug prices have soared recently. While we have seen an increase in costs associated with regulatory compliance, recent generic drug price increases have made us concerned and caused us to take positive action to address an opportunity to help a needy patient population. While we respect Turing’s right to charge patients and insurance companies whatever it believes is appropriate, there may be more cost-effective compounded options for medications, such as Daraprim, for patients, physicians, insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers to consider. This is not the first time a sole supply generic drug – especially one that has been approved for use as long as Daraprim – has had its price increased suddenly and to a level that may make it unaffordable. In response to this recent case and others that we will soon identify, Imprimis is forming a new program called Imprimis Cares which is aligned to our corporate mission of making novel and customizable medicines available to physicians and patients today at accessible prices.”

The company also announced that they will be making identical versions of expensive drugs so they are more affordable.

The statement went on to say that “Today, some drug prices are simply out of control and we believe we may be able to help control costs by offering compounded alternatives to several sole source legacy generic drugs. Imprimis Cares and its team of compounding pharmacists will work with physicians and their patients to ensure they have affordable access to the medicines they need from the over 7,800 generic FDA-approved drugs. Imprimis Cares, available in all 50 states, will work with all third party insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and buying groups to offer its patient-specific customizable compounded drug formulations at prices that ensure accessibility and that provide a reasonable profit for Imprimis. We are here to serve our patients and their physicians. We believe that when we do a great job serving our customers, our shareholders will also benefit.”

Imprimis said that they were inspired to provide an alternative after last month’s price increase of Daraprim.

[admin]

CEO Who Raised the Price of Life-Saving Drug 4000 Percent Arrested for Fraud
By Alexandra Jacobo
December 17, 2015

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Martin Shkreli, “the most hated man in America”, has been arrested on charges of security fraud, unrelated to his price gouging.

Remember Martin Shkreli?

He was the Big Pharma CEO that raised the price of Daraprim, used to treat HIV and AIDS patients as well as toxoplasmosis, by 4000% earlier this year. Shkreli raised the price from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill overnight.

On Thursday Shkreli was arrested on Thursday and has been charged with securities fraud. The charges are not related to price gouging, but to his time as a hedge fund manager and running Retrophin, a biotechnology firm.

Shkreli is accused of stealing stock from Retrophin in order to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He started the company in 2011 to acquire old, neglected drugs used for rare diseases and then significantly increased their prices. He was fired from the company and sued by the board last year. They claimed they had “serious concerns about his conduct.”

In the complaint from Retrophin, the company claims that Shkreli, “Starting sometime in early 2012, and continuing until he left the company, used his control over Retrophin to enrich himself and to pay off claims of MSMB investors (who he had defrauded).”

After he raised the price of Daraprim earlier this year, America turned on him. He then claimed he would lower the price, but never said when or by how

much. He then claimed that Daraprim would be free for people that needed it, which wasn’t actually true:

Martin Shkreli ✔ @MartinShkreli
If you can afford our drugs with insurance, great. If you can't, you can have it for free. Our system works.
11:24 AM - 16 Dec 2015

CallaLilly101 @CallaLilly101
@MartinShkreli you may want to address the physicians who addressed Congress who said that wasn’t true.

After the backlash he attempted to donate to Bernie Sanders in order to get an audience with the presidential candidate, which backfired. Sanders refused to meet with him and donated his gift to a health clinic.

No wonder Shkreli has been dubbed “the most hated man in America.”

Alexandra Jacobo
Alexandra Jacobo is a progressive writer, activist, and mother who began her political involvement in earnest passing out blankets to occupiers in Zuccotti Park in 2011. She is concerned with educating the public and inspiring them to take action on progressive issues that promote positive change at home and abroad.

[admin]

Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Arrested in Multimillion-Dollar Fraud Scheme
By Andrew Emett
December 18, 2015
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Charges against Shkreli carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Notorious for raising the price of a lifesaving drug by 5,500%, Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli was arrested Thursday for allegedly participating in three interrelated multimillion-dollar fraud schemes. Charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy while defrauding investors and misappropriating assets, Shkreli became the most hated man in America after falsely promising to lower the price of Daraprim and later telling reporters that he should have increased the price even higher.

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, 1854.

A scapegoat is a person or animal which takes on the sins of others, or is unfairly blamed for problems. The concept comes originally from Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert with the sins of the community. Other ancient societies had similar practices. In psychology and sociology, the practice of selecting someone as a scapegoat has led to the concept of scapegoating.

--Scapegoat, by Wikipedia

After purchasing the rights to a drug that prevents infections in people with weakened immune systems, including AIDS patients and cancer survivors undergoing chemotherapy, Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim by 5,500% this summer. Instead of paying $13.50 per pill, patients with life-threatening illnesses are now forced to pay $750 per pill. Led by a former hedge fund manager, Turing Pharmaceuticals was founded by Shkreli after his first startup biotech company, Retrophin, ousted him last year amid accusations of stock impropriety.

“As alleged, Martin Shkreli engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit. His plots were matched only by efforts to conceal the fraud, which led him to operate his companies, including a publicly traded company, as a Ponzi scheme, where he used the assets of the new entity to pay off debts from the old entity. When regulators and auditors questioned Shkreli’s decisions, he joined forces with Evan Greebel, who used his law license and training to conceal and further the scheme,” stated U.S. Attorney Robert Capers on Thursday. “The charges and arrests announced today reflect our commitment to hold accountable corporate executives and licensed professionals who betray their positions of trust in order to fraudulently enrich themselves.”

According to the seven-count indictment, between September 2009 and September 2014, Shkreli and his co-conspirators orchestrated three multimillion-dollar schemes to defraud investors and potential investors in MSMB Capital, MSMB Healthcare, and Retrophin. Between September 2009 and January 2011, Shkreli failed to disclose to investors that he had lost all the money he managed in Elea Capital, his prior hedge fund, and that Lehman Brothers had a $2.3 million default judgment against him. Shkreli lied to his largest investor telling him that MSMB Capital had $35 million in assets under management, when in fact it had less than $700 in its bank and brokerage accounts.

After Shkreli bilked approximately $3 million from eight investors, MSMB Capital failed to settle a trade of over 11 million shares of Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (OREX) that Merrill Lynch ultimately closed at a loss of over $7 million. While providing investors with fabricated performance updates, Shkreli also allegedly misappropriated more than $200,000 from MSMB Capital to cover his personal and professional debts.

Following the subsequent collapse of MSMB Capital, Shkreli began soliciting investments for MSMB Health while concealing his disastrous past performance, including the $7 million liability that Shkreli owed Merrill Lynch for the February 2011 OREX trades. From approximately February 2011 to November 2012, Shkreli also falsely represented that MSMB Healthcare had $55 million in assets under management. After acquiring $5 million from 13 investors, Shkreli improperly used MSMB Healthcare assets to pay for obligations that were not its responsibility, including the failed OREX trades.

In an effort to pay off Shkreli’s personal and professional debts, Shkreli, Greebel, and their co-conspirators engaged in a scheme to defraud Retrophin by misappropriating its assets between March 2011 and September 2014. After reportedly lying to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Shkreli and Greebel caused Retrophin to pay more than $3.4 million in cash and stocks to settle claims with seven MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare investors.

“The charges announced today describe a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit, and greed. As charged, Martin Shkreli targeted investors and retained their business by making several misrepresentations and omissions about key facts of the funds he managed. He continued to lie about the success of the investments and used assets from Retrophin to payoff MSMB investors. In the end, Shkreli and Greebel used a series of settlement and sham consulting agreements that resulted in Retrophin and its investors suffering a loss in excess of $11 million. While the charges announced today are significant, they are but one example of what’s left to come as the FBI continues this investigation,” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Diego Rodriguez.

In 2014, Retrophin’s board fired Shkreli and later sued him for breaching his duty of loyalty to the company. After purchasing the exclusive rights to sell Daraprim, Shkreli gained notoriety by suddenly raising the price of the drug by 5,500%. He also recently bought an unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album for $2 million and sent a campaign contribution to Sen. Bernie Sanders, but the presidential candidate refused to accept the dirty money.

Last month, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals named Shkreli its new chairman and CEO. Immediately following Shkreli’s arrest on Thursday, its stock fell by more than half before trading was suspended. According to U.S. Attorney Capers, the charges against Shkreli carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

[admin]

Partnering with the Devil
By Jim Hightower
December 18, 2015

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Blatant lies, PR cover-ups, and a culture of total impunity are now central to the corporate business model.

As a raker of muck, it’s my job to root out the nefarious doings and innate immorality of the corporate creature.

But these days I’m being rendered obsolete by how ordinary corporate nefariousness has become. The wrongdoings of major corporations, and even entire industries, are now so commonplace that one hardly has to root them out at all. Their corruption is constantly oozing to the surface of today’s fetid corporate swamp on its own.

What’s happened is that a profiteering imperative has taken hold of the executive suites. Not content with merely making a profit, CEOs are out to make a killing — no matter what it costs the rest of us.

This has turned them into rank thieves — who are richly rewarded for exploiting America’s workforce, plundering the environment, and corrupting our government. Top executives have seen that they’ll pay no personal price for rapacious behavior, since the corrupted political and judicial systems show no serious interest in prosecuting perpetrators who get caught.


DonkeyHotey / Flickr

In recent months, two huge examples of this rampant crime spree have erupted.

In one, after Big Pharma bought out several reasonably priced medicines from independent drug makers —including a vital AIDS medication — the avaricious giants immediately gouged unsuspecting patients by quadrupling their prices or worse.

In the other, Volkswagen joined the automobile hall of shame by secretly rigging computers on its much-hyped “green” vehicles to hide the fact that they actually spew horrendous amounts of pollution into Earth’s atmosphere.

An ethos of “anything goes” now rules the top floor of suites of most major corporations. Blatant lies, PR cover-ups, and a culture of total impunity are now central to the corporate business model. They don’t care if they get caught. Profit has taken ethics prisoner, and corporate elites now call the devil “partner.”

America is experiencing a dangerous transformation, through which the global elite has used every tactic available in a conspiracy to hoard an even greater share of wealth and reduce the world's population. And it is working. Many Americans have been drawn not toward life but toward servitude and death. In America and in the world as a whole, entire populations have been culled for profit and control. Elites have used the so-called GOD syndicate -- Guns, Oil, and Drugs -- as well as toxic air, water, food, and medicines, and of course, the toxic financial system on which the whole master plan depends -- to reduce the world's population. This is due to the belief of the global elite that the basis of all the world's problems is overpopulation -- just too many people using the earth's limited resources.

Guns, Oil, and Drugs are the top three revenue-generating commodities in the world today, and they form the financial backbone of the global elites. All three are trafficked internationally, generating huge profits for those who control them, and are becoming ever more important in today's economy. America has gone to war for oil, supplied its military (not to mention private citizens) with firearms, and been complicit in a global drug trade. And behind the scenes, a wealthy elite has profited tremendously from all three.

-- Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us, by Jim Marrs

[admin]

Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
By ANDREW POLLACK
SEPT. 20, 2015

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Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“What is it that they are doing differently that has led to this dramatic increase?” said Dr. Judith Aberg, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She said the price increase could force hospitals to use “alternative therapies that may not have the same efficacy.”

Turing’s price increase is not an isolated example. While most of the attention on pharmaceutical prices has been on new drugs for diseases like cancer, hepatitis C and high cholesterol, there is also growing concern about huge price increases on older drugs, some of them generic, that have long been mainstays of treatment.


Martin Shkreli is the founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, which raised the price of the drug Daraprim to $750 a tablet from $13.50. Credit Paul Taggart/Bloomberg, via Getty Images

Although some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced “specialty drugs.”

Cycloserine, a drug used to treat dangerous multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, was just increased in price to $10,800 for 30 pills from $500 after its acquisition by Rodelis Therapeutics. Scott Spencer, general manager of Rodelis, said the company needed to invest to make sure the supply of the drug remained reliable. He said the company provided the drug free to certain needy patients.

In August, two members of Congress investigating generic drug price increases wrote to Valeant Pharmaceuticals after that company acquired two heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, from Marathon Pharmaceuticals and promptly raised their prices by 525 percent and 212 percent respectively. Marathon had acquired the drugs from another company in 2013 and had quintupled their prices, according to the lawmakers, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland.

Doxycycline, an antibiotic, went from $20 a bottle in October 2013 to $1,849 by April 2014, according to the two lawmakers.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association sent a joint letter to Turing earlier this month calling the price increase for Daraprim “unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population” and “unsustainable for the health care system.” An organization representing the directors of state AIDS programs has also been looking into the price increase, according to doctors and patient advocates.

Daraprim, known generically as pyrimethamine, is used mainly to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasite infection that can cause serious or even life-threatening problems for babies born to women who become infected during pregnancy, and also for people with compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients and certain cancer patients.

Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing, said that the drug is so rarely used that the impact on the health system would be minuscule and that Turing would use the money it earns to develop better treatments for toxoplasmosis, with fewer side effects.

“This isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business,” Mr. Shkreli said. He said that many patients use the drug for far less than a year and that the price was now more in line with those of other drugs for rare diseases.

“This is still one of the smallest pharmaceutical products in the world,” he said. “It really doesn’t make sense to get any criticism for this.”

This is not the first time the 32-year-old Mr. Shkreli, who has a reputation for both brilliance and brashness, has been the center of controversy. He started MSMB Capital, a hedge fund company, in his 20s and drew attention for urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve certain drugs made by companies whose stock he was shorting.

In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which also acquired old neglected drugs and sharply raised their prices. Retrophin’s board fired Mr. Shkreli a year ago. Last month, it filed a complaint in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing him of using Retrophin as a personal piggy bank to pay back angry investors in his hedge fund.

Mr. Shkreli has denied the accusations. He has filed for arbitration against his old company, which he says owes him at least $25 million in severance. “They are sort of concocting this wild and crazy and unlikely story to swindle me out of the money,” he said.

Daraprim, which is also used to treat malaria, was approved by the F.D.A. in 1953 and has long been made by GlaxoSmithKline. Glaxo sold United States marketing rights to CorePharma in 2010. Last year, Impax Laboratories agreed to buy Core and affiliated companies for $700 million. In August, Impax sold Daraprim to Turing for $55 million, a deal announced the same day Turing said it had raised $90 million from Mr. Shkreli and other investors in its first round of financing.

Daraprim cost only about $1 a tablet several years ago, but the drug’s price rose sharply after CorePharma acquired it. According to IMS Health, which tracks prescriptions, sales of the drug jumped to $6.3 million in 2011 from $667,000 in 2010, even as prescriptions held steady at about 12,700. In 2014, after further price increases, sales were $9.9 million, as the number of prescriptions shrank to 8,821. The figures do not include inpatient use in hospitals.

Turing’s price increase could bring sales to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year if use remains constant. Medicaid and certain hospitals will be able to get the drug inexpensively under federal rules for discounts and rebates. But private insurers, Medicare and hospitalized patients would have to pay an amount closer to the list price.

Some doctors questioned Turing’s claim that there was a need for better drugs, saying the side effects, while potentially serious, could be managed.

“I certainly don’t think this is one of those diseases where we have been clamoring for better therapies,” said Dr. Wendy Armstrong, professor of infectious diseases at Emory University in Atlanta.

With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim’s distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing.

The switch from drugstores to controlled distribution was made in June by Impax, not by Turing. Still, controlled distribution was a strategy Mr. Shkreli talked about at his previous company as a way to thwart generics.

Some hospitals say they now have trouble getting the drug. “We’ve not had access to the drug for a few months,” said Dr. Armstrong, who also works at Grady Memorial Hospital, a huge public treatment center in Atlanta that serves many low-income patients.

But Dr. Rima McLeod, medical director of the toxoplasmosis center at the University of Chicago, said that Turing had been good about delivering drugs quickly to patients, sometimes without charge.

“They have jumped every time I’ve called,” she said. The situation, she added, “seems workable” despite the price increase.

Daraprim is the standard first treatment for toxoplasmosis, in combination with an antibiotic called sulfadiazine. There are alternative treatments, but there is less data supporting their efficacy.

Dr. Aberg of Mount Sinai said some hospitals will now find Daraprim too expensive to keep in stock, possibly resulting in treatment delays. She said that Mount Sinai was continuing to use the drug, but each use now required a special review.

“This seems to be all profit-driven for somebody,” Dr. Aberg said, “and I just think it’s a very dangerous process.”

[admin]

Sanders Report Finds Skyrocketing Drug Prices Cost Taxpayers $1.4 Billion
By Andrew Emett
December 19, 2015

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At the behest of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general recently released a report that found rising generic drug prices have cost taxpayers an additional $1.4 billion over the last decade. By rapidly increasing drug prices faster than the rate of inflation, the report also revealed that pharmaceutical companies collecting Medicaid reimbursements cost taxpayers more than $700 million in 2013 and 2014 alone.

In October 2014, Sen. Sanders and Rep. Cummings launched an investigation into the recent epidemic of drastically increasing drug prices. On February 24, Sanders and Cummings sent a letter to the Office of Inspector General requesting a thorough examination of the recent price hikes and the effects these price increases have had on Medicare and Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services released their report this week revealing that price gouging has cost taxpayers $1.4 since 2005.

“It is unacceptable that Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” asserted Sanders. “The United States is the only major country on earth that does not in one form or another regulate prescription drug prices and the results have been an unmitigated disaster. This report further demonstrates that we need a new approach to stop skyrocketing drug prices in this country.”

By reviewing the top 200 generic drugs, as ranked by Medicaid reimbursement, from 2005 to 2014, the inspector general examined a total of 869 drugs. In studying the quarterly average manufacturer prices for those drugs, the report found that the prices of top-selling generic drugs rose faster than inflation 22% of the time. Although rising drug prices cost taxpayers $39 million in 2005, the prices increased so rapidly that the cost to taxpayers rose to over $464 million in 2014.

“The IG report confirms that skyrocketing drug prices are not just an isolated problem caused by one or two CEOs motivated by greed, but a systemic injustice that enriches corporate executives at the expense of Americans in desperate need of their medications. Unfortunately, House Republicans have not sent a single letter to a single drug company requesting a single document to investigate these abuses,” said Cummings.

While the top three pharmaceutical companies made a combined $45 billion in profits last year, one in five Americans – 35 million people – were unable to afford to fill their prescriptions. Instead of focusing on research and development, these corporations spent more on sales and marketing while increasing drug prices over 1,000%.

In September, Sanders and Cummings condemned the drug price hikes while introducing legislation authorizing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies to bring down costs for Medicare drug benefits. The Prescription Drug Affordability Act of 2015 includes tougher penalties for drug companies that commit fraud and bans the practice of brand name drugmakers paying competitors to keep lower-priced generic substitutes off the market. The bill also lowers barriers to the importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada.

At the request of Sanders and Cummings, Inspector General Daniel Levinson will conduct a follow-up study analyzing the impact of generic drug price increases on the Medicare Part D program. On Wednesday, Sanders took to Twitter and wrote, “The skyrocketing level of income and wealth inequality is not only grotesque and immoral, it is economically unsustainable.”